I wish DW was a "well-behaved" Windows app. I.e., that it would minimize properly when you alt-Tab out and not try to jump back into focus at every opportunity. The music should also turn itself off when the app is minimized.

A small thing, but wouldn't take that long to code either.

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Build a man a fire and he's warm for the rest of the night. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.

Speaking of research, I would like to see the race-specific versions of most techs count as a prerequisite for further cross-tech research in other branches. That is: currently, a race will have to research its poorer, suboptimal equivalent of its special tech in order to continue research in another branch; the special tech should count as a prerequisite.

I would like the option of semi-automating troop recruitment just like we can with ship designs.

I want to be able to set a minimum number of troops and a maximum number either on a per planet basis(from the planets summary screen)and/or a global setting from the empire policy window where I can set default troop garrison levels on a population basis.

With that, we can have troop transports obey those minimum and maximum rules so that transports will not pick up troops that would reduce a planet below its minimum garrison. It will only pick up the excess troops and the maximum limit will stop the AI from over recruiting and draining your budget.

Another idea, being able to flag certain battalions in the troop summary screen as like "invasion force only" so that troop transports will prioritize picking these troops up first because they are more experienced, of a certain racial type, etc. Maybe there's the possibility of assigning troops to specific transport fleets?

So the troop transports, when given the general order to just load available troops from nearby colonies will first take the ones flagged for invasion force, then take the excess units trained up on planets.

Furthermore, another great thing to add to this is that automated troop transports will move troops from worlds who have more than their minimum number of troops, to worlds that have below the minimum.

I would simply like more race specific weapons and technology. Even if it's just the same weapon with different resource requirements and beam effect, it would be a good step. I just don't like the idea of every race have ships which are 90% the same weapons, shields, armor, engines, reactors, etc in late stage games. Right now, late game fleets are just reskinned with all the same components. I think an easy fix would be adding race specific beam colors, torpedo color, etc and add more technology later.

I'd like to see the terraforming facility actually able to terraform. I'd ideally like to see it get its own branch somewhere in the relevant tech tree, either five or ten research topics long that offer increasing levels of terraforming ability, allowing the facility to improve the quality of a planet it is built on by either 10% or 20% per each of the ten (or five) topics completed.

I'd also like to see orbital or space based wonders, potentially one off super projects along the line of the two planet killers available already. A mobile terraforming engine that can slowly improve the quality of any planet it is parked over would be a nice one to include, And I always wished I had access to a supergun that could blow enemy planets up. It'd be immobile, and to counter the 'can attack anywhere' issue I'd give it a horrendously long recharge time between shots and make it chew up masses of resources to fire as well. Ring worlds and Dyson spheres have to have been mentioned elsewhere so I wont go over them, but another thing I'd like to see is the ability to construct point to point gates that take masses of resources to build but allow instant transmission between them. Titanic world engines that can consume asteroids or dead worlds for one off bonuses of huge amounts of whatever resource is present could also be added. Possibly they can deliver the resources elsewhere, possibly they have to use them themselves, if you make them a sort of mobile star base. Really what I want is an option to really make my mark on the galaxy when I get enough research done.

Edit: Oooooh, while I remember, what I really, really want is a colonise/construct improvements/explore by sector drag and mark option to restrict any automated ships to one or more map areas of my choosing, so that they only work in areas I've chosen till the area is fully developed/explored/colonised, rather than spreading across the map in some nightmarish spiderweb of mining stations, colonies and unexplored systems.

I would like to second King Doom's idea of being able to really terraform planets. Howewer I would like to propose diffrent system - let's say that building terraform facility would be able to improve planet quality by 5% on it's own. But if You want to improve it more than mere 5% You need to supply it with certian resources. Some of already existing resources would be used for this, or new ones would be created for this purpose (biological resources for example). And so for every resources which take part in terraforming system planet quality would rise by another 5% - of course this process should be really slow. Also if one of resources would stop coming for some reasons (and it's planet storages would be lacking of it) planet quality should start droping by 5%, and if terraforming facility would be blown up - planet quality also dropps but to the starting conditions.

Another thing which I would like to propose is to give players ability to control and breed space liveforms, or even creating new ones is some laboratories. Unleashing such creatures in an enemy planetary system could be interesting new strategy. If those creatures could spread to the others star systems they could be really dangerous even for it's creator. Oh, and by saying "give players ability to control [...] space liveforms..." I ment only the ones which players would create in theirs labolatories, and only to the point when players decides to unleash them. From this point it should be dangerous for everybody.

I know that my ideas are not the ones which could be added by simple patch - it is propably something that would need another expansion, but I am still thinking that it is worth to post them here. Maybe somebody will find them interesting, maybe some players will second them. Or maybe some others will convince me that they are not so great ;)

I do like the living space creatures idea, and yeah, to really do it justice it'd probably need to be a new expansion, one based on the ability to create organic technology. It'd be tricky to balance it and make it unique at the same time.

I'd have it so that instead of building ships based on what the player orders you begin with a living space station or space port that works as a hive and randomly spawns ships based on your tech level and the stations size, with optional facilities increasing the chance that it spawns different ship types.

Being that the ships and bases are living things they need to use more resources than non living ships and bases, essentially eating them to stay alive, though the bigger warships would probably be able to take chunks out of enemy ships and bases if they get close enough. the increased amount of resources needed would be balanced out by the fact the ships would spawn randomly, and since this would mean the player with organic tech would have a much smaller fleet than races with non organic tech the organic ships would have to be far more powerful than their counterparts to balance out, creating a much different play experience.

To make the organic ships more powerful the obvious thing to do would give the ships an automatic healing ability, since living things do tend to do that. To increase damage recovery they can be ordered to consume wreckage or harvest materials from planets or asteroids, essentially feeding on them. Different types of material can provide different bonuses, crystals giving more powerful beam weapons, metals giving increased armor, diferent luxury resources proving other benefits based on what the ship type is. The longer a ship lives the bigger it gets and the more powerful it becomes, growing from escort to frigate to destroyer to capital ship (or whatever the size ranking is, I forget) till it can be deployed as a stationary base that spawns more ships for your empire. Battle can increase the rate of growth, and as the ship grows and learns it can gain better defences based on what the opponents ships use. That would have the secondary effect of making it important for opponents to vary their ship loadouts since the same ship type over and over would eventually become far far less effective than the numbers suggest.

- assign an area for defence/operational area (drag box) - if tell auto fleet to refit it remains on auto after refit all ships from fleet screen. - on mission complete pop up/top message window, tell me what that mission was. - tell me when manually controlled fleets complete orders. - queue ship/fleet orders - new column in construction summary window/s called 'sources'. This your empire mining operations for that material. - I would like a save game to be auto paused when loaded. - when troops unloading/loading at enemy or own colony, have a screen appear so u can control how many troops are loaded/unloaded.

ORIGINAL: Shig - I would like a save game to be auto paused when loaded.

This one is implemented in options I think. At least in the last beta

Some suggestions:

-Be able to see in the expansion planner the planets / resource locations in other empires territory. Maybe with a checkbox -I know this is big, but...A proper map editor or at least a tool to export the map from a savegame so we (users) can make a map editor. Of course this means that a new game would have the possibility of start with a custom map.

I like the idea of Terraforming as well, however does it really fit into the time frame of the game? I find that populations on planets grow slowly as it is and I have to wonder if there is enough time to warrant terraforming more planets.

My wishes are twofold.

I would like to see more to the ground combat element of the game by adding different types of troops. IE Armour, Infantry, Mechs, or some race specific types of troops.

If possible I would like to have to have more control over what my policy is towards other races on my planets; for example I would like to have the choice to keep the rodents/humaniods yet remove the insects... Or even keep one humanoid but remove another...

One of the major things I find missing out of this brilliant game is research options to improve troops. You can research new weapons and defenses for ships and stations but it seems like everyone is on a level playing field when it comes to troops.

Yes you can research droid/mech troops that offer some bonuses to troop development meaning an increased troop output at the cost of combat efficiency but I want to be able to research improvements to troop weapons or tactics so that the only thing influencing invasion or defense victory isn't just how much troops you have compared to the opposing force and/or your commanding general's skill that is leading the battle.

To make things a little bit simpler and maybe easier for the AI to manage would be to make it that if you research a new weapon type it immediately adds an attack bonus to your troops depending on level of tech and type of weapon, while research in defensive technologies would in turn improve troop defense. Or to just go all out have technologies that is exclusive to troops that require certain technologies in order to research, like if you research new beam weapons a new tech will be unlocked that you will have to research to allow your troops to utilize the technology. That at least sounds like the least half-ass way to implement troop improving technologies and to add more strategy so you will have to plan ahead so you can keep your armies technologically competitive. But both methods will be very much welcomed.

I just want more strategy when it comes to ground combat. Also I am still waiting for boarding options to disable or capture ships and stations using ships that have troops, requiring appropriate techs of course. And so that capturing a planet won't immediately give attacking forces control of its orbital stations, requiring them either to be destroyed or boarded first. This could give a legitimate reason to have troops on stations to provide boarding defenses or support to the planet.

I would like to see more to the ground combat element of the game by adding different types of troops. IE Armour, Infantry, Mechs, or some race specific types of troops.

I second this as it complements my post above very nicely. Being able to have different troop types would significantly increase the strategy elements of troop combat as well. Having techs that you can research to improve the different troop types too.

having a ship maintance penalty option, some players have commented they don't like having to much money in mid to late stages of the game, and perhaps a ship maintinence cost setting in the race files would help,

for example

we have 'Ship Maintenance Savings: percentage rate of savings on maintenance costs for ships and bases +20 ShipMaintenanceSavings ;40

but game didn't accept it, it would be nice if we can have this ability so those who want to can increase the cost of there ships maintenance to help alleviate the situation where players have far too much money, and hundreds if not thousands of ships at there disposal....

Since an Admirals traits can be positive or negative, I think every "Fleet" should have an Admiral. If he is killed he should be replaced right away. It seems a bit odd to have 5 large fleets and only 1 or two Admirals. Same thing for Generals.

Since an Admirals traits can be positive or negative, I think every "Fleet" should have an Admiral. If he is killed he should be replaced right away. It seems a bit odd to have 5 large fleets and only 1 or two Admirals. Same thing for Generals.

I agree, they treat characters like random and hard to obtain heroes or people of extraordinary skill when they are given titles that are just top ranking personnel in a military force that are trained, risen through the ranks, and promoted accordingly to fill in a position.

They don't just randomly appear in real life and is hard to find. If a fleet is in need of an admiral and they don't have an available admiral and the others are leading different forces they will promote the next most capable and deserving person to fill in the required position, no matter if the most capable isn't exactly the most capable but the best they got or recognize. Like a better than average ship captain or something, and with thousands of qualified personal within a military force it's not that hard to find people like this and are promoted/demoted/fired/hired like any staff at wal-mart is all the time.

You should be able to hire Generals, Admirals, Colony Governors, Ambassadors, Scientists, and Agents at will and as many as you want (you will have to pay expensive wages though and there can only be as many governors as there are colonies and you can only hire an Admiral if you have a leaderless fleet with at least 6 ships and Agents will have a hard limit of 8 but maybe could be increased through research and of course there can only be one leader.), but getting an extraordinarily skilled and high bonus giving one would be the rare and randomly generated part. This will make losing a leader or governor through elections (if democracy/republic) every 4-8 years logical since average/poorly skilled leaders will be very common but revolutionary/ingenious leaders rare and once every decade or two type deal and will stay in office much longer because of their good relationship and standing with the people of the nation.

This all shouldn't be that hard to implement in a later patch. It combined with troop-specific research and maybe a new character type or two, (Like Ship Captains, which won't necessarily be like the other character types in the sense they come with EVERY ship automatically and don't appear on the character tab since they will show up next to their ship name in the ship tab instead being select-able and able to be moved around between ships like other characters. This would allow ships to actually gain experience and gain a personality to them like in our favorite space exploration fiction universes [*cough*Star Trek*cough*]) it will make a very lovely and deep game allowing for an enormous amount of Role-playing possibilities hardly seen in any other Space Opera game allowing us to live out stories as colorful and deep as any Star-Trek and Star Wars level movie/series script without making the game all that much more complex and shouldn't increase the learning curve much more either.

Also, on a somewhat different subject... Why aren't my military ships getting their own names? I have construction ships, colony ships, exploration ships, and private ships that have their own randomly generated ship names but my military ships are named after their ship model with an appropriately increasing number following afterwards being the only thing showing any difference between ships. I find this annoying and my miltary ships above all is what I find myself becoming most attached to and develop a personality with the most. It's kinda hard to develop a personal connection and personality with "Envoker 003" and "Envoker 028" :/

One Question: Since i've no longer played DW for at least 2-3 months(the truth is that i don't exactly remember when i had stopped playing DW),Did the creators of the game made possible the custom planet and star importing thing by modding? if not someone PM me or post here the answer please... (and the same if they did (i mean reply me)) Thanks

I have only very few issues with 1.7.10 and 1.7.12+ that are keeping me from playing very often and unconditionally recommending this game. Here a list as brief as possible (marked with "minor issue", "issue" and "serious issue" as best as possible), thank you in advance for your attention:

DESIGN: - Issue / Bug: Setting "automatic" to upgrade or retrofit does not always upgrade or retrofit according to plan - Serious Issue: pre-designed "optimal" designs for each race are too static, not always optimal for each research contingency, predictable; Solution: ShadowTiger's brilliant solution here.

UI - Minor Issue: Certain race-specific conditions, e.g. "Own (largest) ocean planets", are impossible to find; Solution: an additional selection option in the galaxy map to potential colonies: Planets (and Moons) which displays all colonizable bodies in the galaxy, no matter to whom they belong or what tech they require. They are then sortable in the second tab according to type (Continental, desert, etc.). - Minor Issue: Automated tax settings have low, medium, and high, but no selection for "zero"; Solution: Add option for "none" to tax rate - Minor Issue: Alarm for "being attacked" undifferentiated; Solution: separate Checkboxes for "Attack by Creature", "Attack by Pirate", "Attack by Enemy" - Minor Issue: Often difficult to see needs of colonies in early game (i.e. spaceport building queues halt at x% for undetermined time). Solution: tab in Construction Queue "Waiting for Resources (X, Y, Z)" - Issue: With a valid construction ship selected in the selection window bottom left, we currently CANNOT select a valid target (potential resource) from the empire management lists middle left. Solution: Right-clicking on a valid potential target sends the valid selected construction ship to construct a default item at that target. - Issue: The only way to see a ship's cargo / components is to call up the entire list of all ships (default double-click on ship), which after mid-game takes many seconds. Solution: Shift-Double-Click or Ctr-Double-Click lists cargo / components of that ship only - Minor Issue: Only one portrait per race :-( Solution: Five portraits per race! ;-)

GAMEPLAY / UI - Serious Issue: Starting mid-game, most luxury resources and often many strategic resources become superfluous (i.e. all needs are always met, all colonies have access to 10+ luxuries). There is thus no "reason" to engage in hostilities, because there is nothing worth fighting over. Solution: In Game Setup, add 2 sliders, one for Luxury Resource Proliferation and one for Strategic Resource Proliferation, from very rare to extremely abundant

AI / UI - Serious Issue: "Load Troops at..." command sends all selected ships in fleet to same colony, usual result of which is that 1 ship is loaded and X ships are empty. Troop loading is currently a severe micromanagement challenge. Solution: Command "Load Maximum Troops" to send multiple ships to various colonies. - Issue: The order in which the AI carries out construction orders with its construction ships appears to be static and/or suboptimal. Solution: The player gains more control by opening a construction queue listing (hotkey: "Q") of construction ships only and those ships' queued tasks; the player can move items up and down in these lists or delete them entirely (much like the current construction queue listings for spaceports)

BUGs - Issue: Some ships still will not refuel at resupply ships even if manually ordered to do so; some ships will never refuel at resupply ships if given the order to "refuel at nearest" - if either a resort or a research base is queued to build at a certain location which gives bonuses to both, you cannot queue the other (resort or research base), but instead receive the error message: "CANNOT BUILD: Not enough money" despite having sufficient funds - Minor Issue: space stations not at colonies cannot be retrofitted. Solution: Either remove retrofit button or allow space stations to be retrofitted with construction ships

Posted this(perhaps incorrectly) into the Wishlist Compilation thread as well. Apologies if that was incorrect.

I'd like to see: 1. More granularity for race policy. In a pinch I'd be satisfied being able to target an entire race family for specific policies. Ideally, I'd like to be able to specifically target eachspecific race within a family for migration control.

2. I'd also like it if races set to resettlement orders would migrate to a world with a more native environment when they have a choice. If I set the Ackdarians for resettlement and I have both volcanic and ocean worlds for them to choose from, they always choose ocean. If they don't gave a choice, they look to migrate out of the empire when possible but go to the volcanic world if there are no other valid migration destinations. Maybe they prioritize resort bases as a target until a more viable one opens up.

3. The ability to get rid of that last 1m on a colony short of extermination.

4. In addition to the ability to reject colonial allegiance in the original post, the ability to flag a colony for abandonment. Colony will be set as an independent colony after a certain period of time. In the interim, resettlement migration for all races present is automatically locked on so a percentage of the population can move to other colonies. Those that remain form the population of an independent world along with any facilities and bases that were not scrapped. The emigration time is there to represent the percentage of the population that wishes to remain in the empire, so it needs to be long enough for some to emigrate but not so long that everyone does. Some simply wont emigrate away from their homes or will be unable to due to the home empire's migration policies.

5. The ability to trade colonies, but with a delay like the one for flagging a colony for abandonment above. Colony will be queued for change of ownership in the near future, providing time for some of the population to emigrate away.

6. I'd like to have the ability to be a military goods broker, so to start I'd like to have the ability to sell ships and perhaps troops. To get more detailed, let's say I've set my empire up to maximize manufacturing(shipyard wonder, custom construction bases, mines to supply them all, etc), I'd like to be able to produce baseline ships and products to supply other empires in exchange for military and economic concessions. Of course, I'd want to be able to easily tailor the goods I produce to not give them an unfair advantage over myself, so I'd like a simple way of throttling my ship designs to a particular tech level so as to produce ships in bulk that won't be much good for analyzing for tech advances. Currently I'd need to manually design ships with old technology components, or refrain from obsoleting old designs and muck up my retrofit lists.

The way I imagine it, I could use the Legends tech level slider to choose a tech level and either let the AI design a ship at that level or design one myself with a components list restricted by the tech level slider. It would then be flagged outside my own ship designs so as to not muck up my own design progression and retrofit lists. This design could then be produced in bulk and sold to cash heavy empires short on manufacturing capacity who've recently entered into a war. Troops are shipped by private sector traders, ships change ownership wherever they are and move themselves to their new home.

quote:

ORIGINAL: onomastikon

GAMEPLAY / UI - Serious Issue: Starting mid-game, most luxury resources and often many strategic resources become superfluous (i.e. all needs are always met, all colonies have access to 10+ luxuries). There is thus no "reason" to engage in hostilities, because there is nothing worth fighting over. Solution: In Game Setup, add 2 sliders, one for Luxury Resource Proliferation and one for Strategic Resource Proliferation, from very rare to extremely abundant

I'd suggest an increased consumption rate for luxury goods might tweak this balance as well. As luxury goods are used more quickly it becomes harder to maintain a stockpile. Highly populated and developed worlds should not only demand large stockpiles of luxury goods but should use up those stockpiles at an alarming rate.

Ship actions and designs:1. The ability to create ships by role, not class. Currently, the class is being used as the type or role. I have to choose from the list of existing classes, automatically making a new ship a newer version of an existing class even if what I really want is a ship of the same class just for a custom role.Say I want to design a planetary bombardment cruiser, a standoff missile boat cruiser, and a regular cruiser focusing on beam weapons. I'd like to have all three show up as valid design lines. Currently, I would need to devote one ship class entirely to a specific role, meaning that I have to make standoff missile boat destroyers, beam cruisers, and planetary bombardment cap ships. Depending on my tech level, I may want the ability to specialize roles before I can build or afford a larger ship class. As a workaround, the ability to create custom ship classes would be functional.

2. Patrol sector task for military and exploration ships. If a given sector is composed of gas clouds I would like to assign a ship the task of looping through them repeatedly to make sure no pirate bases have been set up.

3. Constructor ships should have the ability to scrap disabled vessels for money/resources. Ideally, they would not be able to analyze the ship unless they were also equipped with science labs.

Pirates, Corruption, and Criminal Syndicates:1. Criminal Syndicates as a component or companion to piracy. High-corruption or high discontentment on a colony should influence the creation of a criminal syndicate that either acts as an invisible corruption engine to slowly increase corruption, or that begins to funnel larger and larger sums of an empire's income to local pirates. Pirates, of course, use these credits to build more, and more powerful, ships. Criminal syndicates infiltrate nearby mining bases, and can spread to other bases using independent and infiltrated private sector freighters. These bases/ships must be destroyed to eliminate the syndicate, and are slowly revealed by an empire's spies set to counter-intelligence. Syndicate mining bases still produce for the parent empire, though at a reduced rate. This would encourage wealthy empires capable of ignoring revenue losses from corruption to pay attention to the corruption of far-flung colonies.

Syndicates have a diplomatic component, and Syndicates can be contacted/allied with at risk of exposing your own empire to them. Contact with Syndicates can grant the usual discovery purchases, "black market" strategic and luxury resource purchases, and the ability to purchase diplomatic contact with foreign empires the Syndicate has infiltrated as well as pirate factions. Alliances with Syndicates grant both trade revenue and a reduction in the mining penalty at any of your mines that they have infiltrated, but greatly increases the likelihood that your empire's private sector will be taken over by the syndicate. Ships and mines infiltrated by allied syndicates are designated by a tiny colored icon next to the ship/base name. Syndicates do not forward contacts for other Syndicates as this would be helping the "competition," and rival Syndicate freighters will fire on one another if the freighters have weapons.

2. It has been suggested before, I think, but piracy should have a connection to empire corruption. By that I mean local corruption should influence the likelihood of a pirate base spawning in the vicinity. While overall corruption on a given colony might be fairly low, if the population is sufficiently large there would presumably be plenty of individuals willing and interested in engaging in piracy. This would encourage wealthy empires capable of ignoring revenue losses from corruption to pay attention to the corruption of far-flung colonies.

3. Pirates spawned near a given empire should either be made up of that empire's race, or of only the closest neighboring empires(including independent worlds). If the only Teekan worlds are on the other side of the galaxy, a Teekan pirate faction should not spawn near you. The race of the pirates should have a diplomatic impact on other empires. If the Securans are being raided by human pirates, the Securans should note this and suffer a mild diplomatic penalty towards human empires. A positive gain can be obtained by human empires by taking out those pirates. In this way, pirate alliances can better be used to frame other empires or influence diplomatic relationships.

4. When engaged in a pirate alliance, one should be able to direct their attacks. Rather than pirates engaging whatever targets they decide you hate, you should be able to point them at a specific empire in their area. They would, of course, still engage independent targets as normal, and would still defend themselves form other empires, but they would focus their efforts on the empire you designate. Exercising this option would incur a premium charge determined by the strength of the target empire, preferably as an increase of the monthly fee for the alliance. Perhaps multiple empires could be specified, with commensurate fee increases for each one.

5. The ability to build bases and/or ships, and transfer them to allied pirates would make pirate alliances more effective. While this would presumably be done in secret somehow, a diplomatic hit should be incurred if other empires find out. Perhaps such transfers made in view of another empire's ships, colonies, or bases would be made public, encouraging the player to only engage in such deals in out of the way systems. Alternatively, perhaps transferred ships and bases need time to take on "pirate colors" and until then are correctly identified as your empire's equipment. I should, in theory, be able to build my own allied Legendary Pirate faction(with associated AI changes) through support and funding of a regular one.

6. Direct connection to wealth and corruption. The greater the overall revenue of an empire, the greater the corruption. The concern is that a runaway economy will result in massive corruption. The challenge then is to find a way to manage corruption more directly(perhaps with colony facilities), legitimately throttle revenue though empire policy choices, or both.

7. Pirates seem to struggle a bit, especially with armed mining bases. I'm not sure if they have to pay maintenance on their base and ships, but they need a more guaranteed way to generate at least a subsistence level of revenue. I propose:

If they don't already, Pirates should generate a portion of their operating revenue off independent planets. Not only raiding their shipping, but simply orbiting their planet should net them a not insignificant slice of their operating and expansion expenses. Independent worlds may not have the economic clout of a full empire to skim off of, but the GDP of an entire planet should be enough to pay to build, maintain, and improve a small fleet at least.

Raiding civilian shipping seems to be fairly impossible for pirates. Civilian ships are pretty much only vulnerable at their starting and end points, both of which are usually secured in some way at this point. Pirates need a way to intercept civilian ships in no-man's land. Perhaps civilian-grade ship engines are unable to bypass any large gravity wells that cross their flight paths and so must stop to re-calculate their FTL, pausing in a vulnerable state just long enough for pirates to make an occasional kill. Pirates, instead of hanging out at their base or in deep space could then hang out in those systems. Pirate bases would need an increased chance to spawn in a system or cloud nearby, but off the path enough that shipping isn't stopping there and bringing attention to the base. Later game pirates may have access to gravity well generators to pull ships out of FTL anywhere. This reduces the necessity of pirate encounters with fully armed military ships and bases, letting them do what pirates do best, raid lightly armed civilian ships.

Bases, colonies, supplies, and stockpiles:1. Defense bases built on, or in orbit of, an un-colonized planet project a zone of ownership around said planet. This planet could not then be colonized or mined by other empires save under normal rules for doing so(during war, granted mining rights, etc). When a colony ship is given an order to colonize a planet so defended an alert to the owner of the defense base should be issued. The rest of the system, however, is still fair game. Bases built in deep space(like in gas clouds) project a zone of control as far as their weapon range.

2. The ability to designate colonies and bases as strategic resource stockpiles. Private sector ships would deliver strategic resources to those locations beyond any immediate needs, attempting to keep its cargo bays full of a balanced load of each resource. Chromium surpluses should not lead to a resource stockpile starbase filled to the brim with chromium, leaving no room for other strategic resources. As planetary stockpiles can never be filled, they should probably be a lower priority destination than starbase stockpiles. Otherwise, starbase stockpiles may never get deliveries.

4. Government supply contracts. Instead of building the super-freighter above(perhaps before the technology for it is researched), a government supply contract can be issued to set a priority on private sector shipping to strategic resource stockpiles. As long as the contract is in effect, a portion of state revenue is directed back to the private sector, perhaps increasing overall corruption for the empire.

5. Bases are large stationary structures so should be able to be invaded with troops and captured. Obviously, there is only so much room in them, so a planetary invasion force just couldn't fit inside. Bases can only be invaded by one or two troop units at a time, giving elite defenders a chance to buy the base time for help to arrive. New design components such as an automated defense component(internal turrets, auto-locking bulk heads, etc) strengthens defending troop units. Actual troops can be stationed there by including troop transport modules, or cheaper(and weaker) security station modules may be installed instead. Security forces could be recruited onsite automatically, but troops should still come from planet-based academies/clones/factories. Micro-management of troop delivery needs to be avoided, so maybe private sector freighters can deliver troops to bases with troop modules as part of their resource pickup routine. Alternatively, perhaps it could be a function added to the automated routine of state-sector troop transport ships.

Pirates can invade mining bases, taking them over to generate revenue. They still produce for the parent empire, but at a reduced rate. Pirate faction receives any revenue normally generated or converts lost production to revenue directly. A base taken over by pirates tries to lay low, so is only discovered by spies set to counter-intelligence.

6. The unique trade resources can be exhausted from over-harvesting. If ten empires are sending mining ships to grab up as much Loros Fruit as they can from one planet, that qualifies as over-harvesting. Colonies can burn them out even faster from both local use by a large population as well as export. However, actual mining bases can automatically throttle the harvest, conserving the resource with sustainable harvesting levels. Also, they can be cultivated at a new location at great expense. Perhaps as part of a "Someone requests 'X'" event below.

Spaceport stations as trade hubs: I'd like to be able to build spaceport bases anywhere and have them operate as trade hubs and bases for defense fleets.

As I imagine it, these remote trade hubs would be treated as a limited function colony:

Their population is handled like resort base population, and they have a corruption rating. The presence of military ships from the home empire reduces corruption, tying up a defense fleet for the trade hub. More trade means more corruption, requiring a larger fleet.

The hub can serve as a home base for a fleet.

The hub can be destroyed, but also invaded and captured.

If their corruption rating gets too high, they can go independent. They are then somewhat like a pirate faction. If the spaceport has shipyards they will produce escort-class ships for local defense, as well as troops to prevent casual invasion, but they're just an independent merchant guild so don't expect them to be powerful enough to resist a determined empire. They still serve as a trade hub, but the majority of the revenue generated is retained by the trade hub's faction. You only get to keep whatever revenue is generated by selling(dropping off) resources to them.

As a private sector facility they don't project a zone of ownership, but they are owned by your empire so they can be blockaded and attacked as part of actions against you.

As a spaceport, they serve as a valid drop-off destination for mining ships and freighters from nearby mining sites.

Trade and shipping:1. There needs to be something that promotes trade aside from simple scarcity. Currently trade consists of shipping raw resources to locations with high demand. While simple and functional, with the general abundance of resources it seems like trade is somewhat superfluous. A simple solution might be actual trade goods as a resource in addition to raw resources. The private sector, with access to certain resources and certain planet types, produces trade goods to be consumed both internally as well as sold to other empires. Different empires place different values on certain trade goods.

These can be simple luxury goods such as perfumes, furniture, or gemstones. Luxury trade goods are manufactured using all luxury resources available at a planet in order to help reduce stockpiles. The more different types of luxury resources are available, the faster these are produced. This helps facilitate continued trade of raw resources as well. For example: Securan perfumes might be considered the best perfumes to Human noses, but Kiadians consider them foul. Atuuk, however, find them to be literally an addictive narcotic. Atuuk hardwood furniture is a positive pleasure to Humanoid rumps, but insectoid races simply don't see any value to it whatsoever. Gizurean gemstones dazzle the eyes of the simple(Atuuk), vain(Securan), or greedy(Human), but are uninteresting to the cerebral(Kiadian, Zenox). Absent luxury trade goods, luxury resources may still be used as normal to improve planetary development, but perhaps luxury trade goods grant an additional happiness bonus.

They can also be strategic goods such as manufactured ship and base components. Strategic components are manufactured using all strategic resources available at a planet in order to help deplete supply stockpiles. The more different types of strategic resources are available, the faster these are produced. This helps facilitate continued trade of raw resources as well. For example: The strategic trade good could just be a generic "construction supplies" item. Races with a bonus to starship maintenance might make the best construction supplies so theirs are in high demand commensurate with their maintenance bonus. When constructing a ship or base, these goods can be used as an alternative for any part or resource your construction project currently needs. Tech level is irrelevant, it is just assumed that the parts are sufficiently compatible to move construction along. These would have a higher priority for freighters to deliver to construction sites due to their ability to be used for any component. Absent these goods, a construction ship or planet can build from raw resources as normal, but using the trade good might grant a boost to construction speed.

Trade goods promote, well, trade. They could also promote raids to capture stockpiles. That said, large stockpiles should not be common. There should be a throttle on how many of these trade goods are built and stockpiled to represent some notion of supply and demand. The empire first seeks to satisfy internal demand, but will not significantly produce beyond that unless there is a trading partner who wishes to consume them as well. Once such a partner is identified, being either an independent world or another empire, the private sector will ramp up to produce additional supply to meet that demand, then level off again. Stockpiles occur primarily when trade is cut off, preventing the a given supply from reaching its intended market. Obviously, an empire that operates under a different political/economic system might get a bonus or penalty to trade good stockpiles to represent economic mandates.

2. Someone else suggested private sector ships forming convoys. I second that suggestion. I would expect that the auto-fleet AI could be used to do so. Armed traders in a convoy do a better job of defending themselves since they can combine firepower, but are also easier for military ships to escort.

3. Currently, civilian shipping is structured like a series of odd-jobs. Freighters take on a single job like "ship steel from Securan colony to Human colony" then wait there until a new task is assigned. While functional, it lacks a certain elegance. Instead, I'd like to see some manner of trade routes established. Perhaps small freighters(representing small-time traders) can perform the odd-job trades, but maybe medium and large freighters establish more regular routes. Rather than having a freighter just carry steel from point A to point B then just pick a new random job, it would be cool to see a trade route established where Steel was picked up from point A, sold at point B and Caslon purchased, Caslon is sold at point C and Bifurian Silk is purchased, Bifurian Silk is sold at point D and Carbon Fibre is purchased to be sold back at point A. This is a somewhat cosmetic request, I suppose, but ultimately it would be nice if trade routes generated some manner of bonus for the participating empires. Unfortunately, it seems like resource availability and revenue do not need any sort of boosting. Perhaps the diplomatic benefit granted from trade could be buffed by trade routes for each empire participating in at least one leg of the trade. Empires like other empires they can count on for regular trade, so a trade route could serve as a multiplier to that diplomatic boost.

4. Independent trade guild ships that just putter about buying up raw resources from large stockpiles. This helps reduce large resource stockpiles. Trade guild bases can spawn near large empires and have a diplomatic component so resources an empire is short on can be purchased in bulk. Trade guilds can establish trade sanctions against empires they don't like, refusing to trade with them absent large bribes. They can also be paid enormous sums(representing lost trade revenue) to do so. This helps to reduce money supply. An empire can also establish trade sanctions against trade guilds, preventing them from buying up their stockpiles at the expense of earning the guild's disapproval.

Someone requests "X" events: A foreign empire, faction, or the parent empire's private sector periodically requests something such as a base be built, a colony be established, favorable trade agreement be offered, and so on. If successful, the parent empire receives some manner of perk such as an advanced ship, temporary research or economic bonuses, reputation increase or improved relations with another empire, and so on.

For example: The private sector suggests that a world needs to be studied for future developments left unspecified. They request that a science base be built over the planet even though the planet does not show any bonus to research performed there. If one is built:

A new resource supply might be found. Any resources so discovered would have a low yield, but the longer the science base is in place the yield of all resources currently present on the planet increases as access to those resources is developed or they are cultivated. Moreover, if the empire has access to one of the unique trade resources from elsewhere and the planet is of the correct type, it is possible that this unique resource could actually be cultivated on the planet.

The planet's quality increases over time.

New science bonuses might be discovered.

New scenic bonuses might be discovered.

Any and all of the above.

Espionage and Diplomacy: 1. I'm not a huge fan of the Legends system of Intelligence Agent acquisition. Currently I have to wait for an agent to more or less randomly spawn, and if they get captured I have to wait for a new one. My suggestions would be for intelligence agents to be recruitable so I can engage in espionage with relative impunity, and have the intelligence characters that pop up represent department heads that provide bonuses to the intelligence actions I queue up.

2. New intelligence missions designed to frame other empires, or an overlay option for existing missions to do so. Intelligence agents would be sent in to either pose as a foreign spy and be detected while escaping, or just to set another empire as their cover so if they are detected you don't take the diplomatic hit. If they're captured, obviously, the truth is discovered(with maybe a small chance of the agent refusing to talk before execution).

ORIGINAL: Bebop Cola Later game pirates may have access to gravity well generators to pull ships out of FTL anywhere. This reduces the necessity of pirate encounters with fully armed military ships and bases, letting them do what pirates do best, raid lightly armed civilian ships

As a unique pirate ability, or a tech device that players can equip on their ships as well? As it stands, there is no manner to intercept a fleet that's in motion. All you can do is meet it at it's destination and hope to pin as many as possible down with hyperjump inhibitors.

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“That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.” ― Christopher Hitchens

not sure if this feature has been added or not, i did a quick search and couldnt find i dont have the legends one yet, i have return of the shaktur if this has been added then apologies but...

could you add an option to manually "obsolete" and unobsolete ship components? (like you can with ship designs)

this way you can upgrade your ships using the "upgrade selected designs" in the ship design menu without fear of having an item upgraded that you wish to keep (ie the "mega fuel tank" being replaced by the more expensive and lesser "ultra fuel tank", there are other items)

1 Make the values for character skills Int16 instead of Int8 because if you get a skill level high enough it flips and goes negative (+128 -> -127). Making it a Int16 should fix that problem since no one will get a skill in the ten thousands.

2 I notice the code is divided nicely between the exe and several DLLs. Perhaps an API could be released for the DLLs so we could make changes to the game logic in the DLLs and compile our own DLLs. Civ4 did this and the community was able to do some amazing things.

1 Make the values for character skills Int16 instead of Int8 because if you get a skill level high enough it flips and goes negative (+128 -> -127). Making it a Int16 should fix that problem since no one will get a skill in the ten thousands.

2 I notice the code is divided nicely between the exe and several DLLs. Perhaps an API could be released for the DLLs so we could make changes to the game logic in the DLLs and compile our own DLLs. Civ4 did this and the community was able to do some amazing things.

1 Make the values for character skills Int16 instead of Int8 because if you get a skill level high enough it flips and goes negative (+128 -> -127). Making it a Int16 should fix that problem since no one will get a skill in the ten thousands.

2 I notice the code is divided nicely between the exe and several DLLs. Perhaps an API could be released for the DLLs so we could make changes to the game logic in the DLLs and compile our own DLLs. Civ4 did this and the community was able to do some amazing things.

or just have it max at 128?

Codewise it would be easier to change the variable type from Int8 to Int16. It's a one place change with no chance of introducing bugs. Artificially maxing a variable at a number would require lots of checks in several location to make sure that variable doesn't exceed that value. I really don't think adding an extra byte to leaders' skills will be in any way noticible in terms of memory usage. You'd have to have ten's of thousands of leaders.

I like to play the game the normal way starting from the beginning and fighting the shakturi

but i also love it to play in a different way: For exemple:-play an old and technologically advanced race trying to reach some kind of technological

accomplishment: The goal would be to not allow any race to be destroyed, in order to get their racial technology once they would be advanced enough

But first it would be needed to create some almost self sufficent starbase in the space void to remain undetectable. It would need something that could replace the energy to fuel generator for those outpost, some "zero point module energy" for exemple ^^ Obviously it should be also very expensive and wouldn't be worth using in another situation, and also it shouldn't be too large so it would be still possible to cloak the starbase.

It would also be useful that it uses automatically racial tech in ship design

The goal would be to get all the racial technology: "to what end ?" you may think Well there would be some "technological accomplishement" technology or "galactic understanding" or something that would be only unlocked when all those elements are present

For exemple this technology would allow to create incredibly big ships, or create a planet from meteorites... Or miniaturized version of already owned tech ^^

This could be a way to play the game could be a way to continue a normal game For ex: You are the strongest in your galaxy but many races are extinct: You decide to traver to another galaxy with a very very expensive world ship and you find already developped races here

Well it would be great

Thank you for reading me This game fuel my imagination with beautiful dreams ^^ I love it

Speaking of research, I would like to see the race-specific versions of most techs count as a prerequisite for further cross-tech research in other branches. That is: currently, a race will have to research its poorer, suboptimal equivalent of its special tech in order to continue research in another branch; the special tech should count as a prerequisite.

Maybe some Racial technologies should be slightly upgraded: I'm only talking about the highest technology in the tech tree

-wekkarus wave weapon is slightly less powerful that the best common beam weapon (the wave weapon range is lower, even with a lesser energy dissipation and less energy consumption its not worth using it) -zenox shield not as good at meridian shield (even if the zenox shield cost only 9 space, while merdian 10, its not worth using it if the fight doesn't last a very long time which is not likely to happen) -quameno reactor is too heavy and its not worth using it even with the best fuel/energy ratio (i've tried to do some simulations and it always seemed its not the best reactor) -dahyut hyperdrive is also slightly not as fast as the best common hyperdrive

But for ackadarian,ugnari,kiadin, and some others, their technology is just far superior than the common one. I think it should be the same for the others races